Pity

[3] Psychoanalysis sees a more convoluted route to (at least some forms of) adult pity by way of the sublimation of aggression—pity serving as a kind of magic gesture intended to show how leniently one should oneself be treated by one's own conscience.

The Hebrew word hesed translated in the Septuagint as eleos carries the meaning roughly equivalent to pity in the sense of compassion, mercy, and loving-kindness.

[6] In Mahayana Buddhism, Bodhisattvas are described by the Lotus Sutra as those who "hope to win final Nirvana for all beings—for the sake of the many, for their weal and happiness, out of pity for the world".

While "we blush for the conduct of those, who behave themselves foolishly before us; and that though they show no sense of shame, nor seem in the least conscious of their folly," Hume argues "that he is the more worthy of compassion the less sensible he is of his miserable condition.

"[12]Nietzsche pointed out that since all people to some degree value self-esteem and self-worth, pity can negatively affect any situation.

[14] Geoffrey Chaucer wrote "pite renneth soone in gentil herte" at least ten times in his works, across the Canterbury Tales and the Legend of Good Women.

"[16]: 15 Chaucer's line, described by Walter Skeat as being Chaucer's favourite, was understood by Edgar Finley Shannon to be a translation of Ovid's Tristia volume 3, verses 31–32, Shannon describing it as "an admirable translation and adaptation of the passage".

[17]: 73 Like Middle English, Old French took the word from the Latin and gradually split it into "pité" (later "piété") and "pitié".

Alexander sees with a look of pity that Darius has died from his wounds.
The Human Abstract , a poem in William Blake's collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience , in which he proclaims "Pity would be no more, / If we did not make somebody Poor" (1–2). This version is copy L created in 1795 and currently held by the Yale Center for British Art . [ 5 ]